A different idea - same chassis, different engines

[Wilf]

Since the conversation is on chassis, does anyone else think it might be a good idea to use the same chassis for both the ILS and the ICS? The difference being more areas allowed to be developed on the Indycars and obviously engines. More parts produced means lower costs right? ILS teams would be able to move up with a lower financial commitment as compared to totally different tubs and a move like this might also ensure high car counts for both the series. Are the dimensions on the two formulas currently the similar?

WEIGHT: FIL - 1430 LBS, ICS - 1565 LBS
WIDTH: FIL - 75 +- 1/2 INCHES, ICS - 78 + - 1/2 INCHES
LENGTH: FIL - 191.5 INCHES MINIMUM, ICS - 192 INCHES MINIMUM
WHEELBASE: FIL - 117 INCHES, ICS - 121.75 +- .25 INCHES
WHEEL SIZE BOTH 15x10 FRONT, 15x14 REAR
DIFFERENT GEARBOXS
DIFFERENT MOTORS

Has a lot of positives. Great experience for both drivers and mechanics. The cost is the only big drawback.

What are your thoughts?

[Mad_Hatter]

Thanks Wilf, so the dimensions are fairly similar. I wouldn't have thought they were that close though.



When you say cost is a drawback what do you mean?

[Wilf]

Thanks Wilf, so the dimensions are fairly similar. I wouldn't have thought they were that close though.



When you say cost is a drawback what do you mean?

The IndyCar chassis uses some exotic material in their carbon fibre production as well as it being a more reinforced chassis. They were around $310K. The Firestone Indy Light chassis is only approx $137K. With the discounts now being offered by Dallara it is a little under twice as expensive to buy an IndyCar chassis.

That is a big difference but I'm not sure the cost couldn't be reduced significantly by using a two or three year old chassis. The ability to learn a cars characteristics would be invaluable for bother the driver and mechanic.

There has to be something else holding it back.

[dataman1]

I believe today the difference and therefore the cost has to do with primarily driver safety. If you look at 2008 Indy, the FIL fastest race lap was 191.4 while the ICS ran 224.0. Consider the increased amount of G's that increase in speed creates with a hit into a wall. That leads the faster tubs to include intrusion panels and stronger composites to disipate the energy or deflect the object trying to impale the driver.

That said, the FIL cars could be built to the same specs and that would allow drivers, mechanics and engineers to learn that chassis with less horsepower. That would also drive up the cost of the FIL cars but could save some teams that field cars in both series due to less inventory of spare parts. As people learn, there may even be some cross-over in manpower to both series.

Good idea Wilf. We need thoughtful ideas these days.

[EagleEye]

WEIGHT: FIL - 1430 LBS, ICS - 1565 LBS
WIDTH: FIL - 75 +- 1/2 INCHES, ICS - 78 + - 1/2 INCHES
LENGTH: FIL - 191.5 INCHES MINIMUM, ICS - 192 INCHES MINIMUM
WHEELBASE: FIL - 117 INCHES, ICS - 121.75 +- .25 INCHES
WHEEL SIZE BOTH 15x10 FRONT, 15x14 REAR
DIFFERENT GEARBOXS
DIFFERENT MOTORS

Has a lot of positives. Great experience for both drivers and mechanics. The cost is the only big drawback.

What are your thoughts?

This had been discussed back in the CART days, when formulating potential chassis for the ARS/Indy lights series.

It would be quite easy and cost effective to make one tub which could be used by both series. Each could have different undertrays, noses, rad ducts, fuel cells, engine mounts, engines, transmissions, suspensions, wing packages, etc. that would provide the safety and uniqueness each series may want.

Since Dallara is the only make, I would think this would be favored by them as well.

Just think of the indy entry list if the lights teams could purchase ICS kits for the month of may, or for selected races.

The modular concept would be a great way to go.

[Jag_Warrior]

Is this not the first idea that's hit this board that we all see the benefits of? Which I guess means that it will never happen...

[UncleHayai]

I’m not sure that a single modular chassis will let them “learn that chassis with less horsepower.” Having different suspension, different tires, different wings, different ground effects, different transmissions, different engines, different weight distribution, different aero balance, different electronics, and different everything else means that setting up the cars in their ICS and FIL specs will be pretty much nothing alike.

It wouldn’t surprise me if the tub/main body of a rolling chassis is worth less than half of the car’s cost. Considering the “worst spec ever!!!” mentality about the current Dallara’s speed, making a body that fits in FIL teams’ budgets without slowing down the ICS cars doesn’t seem very feasible. So, the unified body will almost certainly increase costs for FIL teams.

Let’s say that we are running a FIL team in 2011 and want to compete in the 500. Let’s compare the costs:

A.) If I already have a FIL car (using the unified body, let’s say the body is worth $100,000 and the FIL parts are $50,000), I have to spend $200,000 to bring the chassis up to ICS spec. I have spent a total of $350,000 and can only run in one series on a given weekend. If I crash, I might lose the body and be forced out of both the FIL and the 500 unless I can afford a new one.

B.) Or, if I have the current spec IPS/FIL car (worth $115,000), I can buy a 2006 spec Panoz/G-force chassis for $145,000. I have spent a total of $260,000 and can run in both races, giving me the most sponsor exposure. If I wreck my FIL car, I can still run in the 500 (plus I can always sell the G-force to fund repairs). If I wreck my G-force, it doesn’t affect my FIL campaign.

So, IPS teams have already had the opportunity to get a cheap 500 spec car, and it appears that it saves the FIL teams a lot of money ($90,000 if my estimates are in the ballpark). It looks like there was a good reason that CART dropped the unified body idea.

[UncleHayai]

I’m not sure that a single modular chassis will let them “learn that chassis with less horsepower.” Having different suspension, different tires, different wings, different ground effects, different transmissions, different engines, different weight distribution, different aero balance, different electronics, and different everything else means that setting up the cars in their ICS and FIL specs will be pretty much nothing alike.

It wouldn’t surprise me if the tub/main body of a rolling chassis is worth less than half of the car’s cost. Considering the “worst spec ever!!!” mentality about the current Dallara’s speed, making a body that fits in FIL teams’ budgets without slowing down the ICS cars doesn’t seem very feasible. So, the unified body will almost certainly increase costs for FIL teams.

Let’s say that we are running a FIL team in 2011 and want to compete in the 500. Let’s compare the costs:

A.) If I already have a FIL car (using the unified body, let’s say the body is worth $100,000 and the FIL parts are $50,000), I have to spend $200,000 to bring the chassis up to ICS spec. I have spent a total of $350,000 and can only run in one series on a given weekend. If I crash, I might lose the body and be forced out of both the FIL and the 500 unless I can afford a new one.

B.) Or, if I have the current spec IPS/FIL car (worth $115,000), I can buy a 2006 spec Panoz/G-force chassis for $145,000. I have spent a total of $260,000 and can run in both races, giving me the most sponsor exposure. If I wreck my FIL car, I can still run in the 500 (plus I can always sell the G-force to fund repairs). If I wreck my G-force, it doesn’t affect my FIL campaign.

So, IPS teams have already had the opportunity to get a cheap 500 spec car, and it appears that it saves the FIL teams a lot of money ($90,000 if my estimates are in the ballpark). It looks like there was a good reason that CART dropped the unified body idea.

[Mad_Hatter]

The idea should be to keep as many parts as possible common between the two packages so that prices for that part will be lower, hopefully enough parts are produced(2 series worth) to reduce the cost of the ILS from what it is now. Suspension, wings, and undertray should be common also if at all possible. Firestone is the tire provider for both the ICS and the ILS so there could be some crossover from that info if not usage of the same tire. How similar are the Cup and Nationwide tires for example(Seriously I have no idea?) I remember the rumor a couple of years ago(IIRC) was that the Indycar and the Champ Car tires were the exact same.


Some of the other issues you've mentioned aren't insurmountable either. The successful transition that Rusport made shows that a respectable feeder series team wouldn't have trouble figuring aero balance and weight distribution with around a Month of practice for Indy and maybe a race weekend prior to May. Electronics and engines would remain different, but with engineering assistance from the engine manufacturer this should not be too much of a problem either.


The cars are slower because the Hondas are detuned and the design is old. With increased manufacturer presence I think the speeds are sure to go up. The Panoz DP01 had lower operating costs and was slightly faster than the Lola it replaced. With so many more parts being produced there should be less of a tendency to skimp on quality as the DP01 was said to have some of those types of issues.


Does the $145k that you quoted for the 2006 GForce include the electronics, ethanol cooling, and safety updates that are now required? Also have there been any performance upgrades since then? The $200k ILS-ICS conversion seems high to me too, but you seem to be more experienced at pricing than me.

[UncleHayai]

One of the things to remember about carbon-fiber manufacturing is that the cost doesn’t really drop with scale like cast or formed metal products do. After making a certain number of parts, the cost only really drops due to spreading out the R&D costs, and at the other end of the sigmoid curve, each item’s manufacturing costs start to dwarf that item’s share of the R&D. That’s why the Dallara’s price hasn’t really dropped despite being produced for what seems like decades, or despite the Milka Duno-generated demand for replacement parts.

The 2006 G-Force price was from a brochure that IMS sent out to teams to show them how inexpensive a 2nd-week-only program was. I don’t think the G-Force is even approved for the 500 this year; I just threw that out there to give an example of what a budget ICS-spec alternative car might cost if they decide to allow it after the 2011/12 rule revamp. Also, I understated the FIL car’s price a little to represent the potential for buying used cars or replacement parts (which won’t be immediately available if the FILs switch chassis at the same time as the ICS).

When I proposed the price for FIL-ICS upgrade parts, I made the assumption that the complete ICS car would cost about the same as the current Dallara. I honestly don’t see an Italian-manufactured chassis costing less than $300,000, even with the increased volume from a common body. Alternately, we could assume that the common body costs more but the upgrade parts cost less (as I think you were getting at), but the FIL teams might reject the increase in cost. With the FIL car sharing the suspension and crash structure of the ICS car, the chassis' cost might be closer to $200,000 or $250,000 and cost $100,000 or $50,000 to upgrade, respectively. At the lower end, that isn’t a huge jump from the $138,000 cost of the current FIL car, but keep in mind that we would be asking all of these low-budget times to buy these new chassis at the height of an economic recession.

The differences between the setup characteristics of a unified chassis in FIL and ICS spec are certainly not insurmountable, but the same could be said for the differences between the current IPS/FIL chassis and the ICS chassis. The key question here is “will the increase in FIL costs compensate for the reduction in handling differences?” It’s certainly tough to answer without having a past upgradeable chassis to look at.

[Mad_Hatter]

I see what you're saying. Many have said the ICS shouldn't have committed to Dallara because of the currency issues. Shouldn't some of the R&D(suspension, impact, really everything except for aero and gearbox) costs be substantially lower than it would be should they instead develop two separate packages? This should lower overall costs too.